Economics And Patents
Patents are legal instruments intended to encourage innovation by providing a limited monopoly to the inventor (or their assignee) in return for the disclosure of the invention. The underlying assumption being innovation is encouraged because an inventor can secure exclusive rights, and therefore a higher probability of financial rewards in the market place. The publication of the invention is mandatory to get a patent. Keeping the same invention as a trade secret, rather than disclose by publication, could prove valuable well beyond the time of any limited patent term, but at the risk of congenial invention through third party.
Read more about Economics And Patents: Costs Versus Benefits of The System, Macroeconomic Perspective, Microeconomic Perspective, Patent Valuation
Famous quotes containing the words economics and and/or economics:
“Religion and art spring from the same root and are close kin. Economics and art are strangers.”
—Willa Cather (1876–1947)
“The animals that depend on instinct have an inherent knowledge of the laws of economics and of how to apply them; Man, with his powers of reason, has reduced economics to the level of a farce which is at once funnier and more tragic than Tobacco Road.”
—James Thurber (1894–1961)